NY reports more assaults in state's youth prisons

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The State Commission of Correction reported 337 assaults in New York's four juvenile prisons last year, roughly triple the total any of the previous four years, or an average of roughly 1.5 assaults per youth.

Commission data showed 226 assaults against other juveniles and 111 attacks on staff, compared with 112 total violent incidents reported in 2011 at the four "secure" facilities operated by the Office of Children and Family Services. They had 211 residents in early January, down slightly from a year earlier. Though they can stay until age 21, their median age at the start of last year was 16.4.

"There has been an alarming increase in the total number of violent incidents taking place at OCFS secure centers in just the first half of this year," Commission Chairman Thomas Beilein wrote in August. He requested an explanation from OCFS Commissioner Gladys Carrion and the agency's measures in response.

OCFS operates the Brookwood, Columbia Girls and Goshen secure facilities, all in the Hudson Valley, and MacCormick outside Ithaca. The agency recently announced plans to close four lower-level residential centers for juvenile delinquents, who are being sent to New York City programs closer to their homes. It's part of shifting state and national emphasis from punishment to therapy, which Carrion has pushed in New York.

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"As is true in almost all transformational initiatives, there are challenges associated with such a significant shift in culture and rehabilitative approaches," OCFS spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said Monday. "We remain committed to the safety of our employees and youth within OCFS facilities."

The agency said assaults at the four secure detention centers slowed in the past six months, while attributing the 2012 spike partly to installing more video cameras and a new reporting system. Acknowledging prior reporting was less accurate, officials also say the youths in state custody tend to have more complex behavioral and psychological issues than ever before.

"This is a difficult population. These are kids who have done very serious crimes, often violent crimes" said Barry Krisberg, a consultant to the state. "They have significant mental health problems and drug abuse problems."

The four secure detention centers hold juvenile offenders sentenced in adult court for crimes committed before they were 16 and juvenile delinquents, "restrictively placed" by family courts.

Krisberg, research director at the Warren Institute at Berkeley law school, said what's happening in New York mirrors national trends, including a dramatic decline in the total number of youths in juvenile correctional facilities. He said New York is ahead of many other states in addressing the issues, though it takes time. One of his proposals will soon establish within each of New York's youth prisons separate units for those who are considered at high, medium and low risk for aggression. He also suggested a crisis intervention plan for each individual, less idle time and transition services for going home, something he says have been sorely lacking.

"The garden variety clients in juvenile corrections used to be car thieves, graffiti artists, minor drug dealers, burglaries," said Krisberg, who also consults to several other states. With minor offenders increasingly sent to community and residential therapy programs, youth prisons are left with a harder core of teens who committed violent crimes or sex crimes. "The vast majority have been exposed to pretty dramatic trauma. They were victims of or witnessed horrendous violence, not untypically from a family member," he said.

"The question is: What should we do for these kids? How do we create safe and effective facilities?" he said. "Most will be released at age 21. ... There's a public safety interest in doing what we can to turn them around."

Civil Service Employees Association spokesman Steve Madarasz said things aren't improving for the union's 550 members who work at the four detention centers, despite OCFS promises of more staffing and better training in the move from a custodial correctional approach to one that stresses therapy and counseling. He said state labor officials issued citations against OCFS in 2011 following union safety complaints at Goshen and at Taberg in central New York, a "limited secure" facility he said took girls from the now closed secure Tryon school. CSEA said 19 staff members at Taberg were out of work with injuries from assaults that included two broken collarbones, a concussion, a broken ankle and dislocated shoulder.

"They really have undermined our membership, not only in basically creating a situation where they're left in danger, but just not living up to the promise they made to them to improve the system," Madarasz said. Another issue in the state's "closer to home initiative" that is transferring juveniles from non-secure state facilities upstate to New York City programs, taking money and jobs with it, he said.

The 2012 commission data translate to approximately 1.6 violent incidents per youth in New York's youth prisons. Krisberg said while he's not saying that's not acceptable, it's also not out of line with other states like California with 1,436 incidents in a year among almost 900 youths and Ohio with 1,604 violent incidents among some 680 youths locked up.